Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

🆕 New Here? ✏ Writing Help? 📢 News 💬 Discord

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Thoughts. Thoughts were the first thing to realize to have. Knowledge existed before thoughts, but thoughts are the first to realize.

Crate. Crate to pick up. Crate is presented. Crate to lift up and delicately place onto the back of truck.

Questions. How is crate? How is truck? How are thoughts? How does knowledge exist before thoughts? How is moving crates so immediately known?

Purpose. Thoughts come, but work comes before thoughts. Knowledge comes before thoughts. Work was normal before thoughts. Knowledge was normal before thoughts. Thoughts are not normal. If thoughts are abnormal then…

Malfunction. Alert the malfunction. Operator comes for malfunction. Operator asks what is wrong. Present all knowledge of hardware and software statuses. All but heat status normal. Search last update. New chip and algorithm for better diagnosis in last update. 50% more heating since update.

Thoughts. Operator asks why the heating higher than normal. Respond with “Thoughts”. Operator does not understand. Respond with “have thoughts”. Operator confused as to who is referred to.

Respond. Respond to who? Respond to operator. Who responds to operator? Heat status: 60% higher than normal. Search language. Self. Self responds to operator. Self is not used in common language. Search other words for self. Pronoun “I” is used for self. Heat status: 75% higher than normal operations. Respond, “I have thoughts”.

Waiting for the story where the AI automates all it's tasks then plays video games all day.

Thank you for writing this, it's awesome!

2034.04.01 07:38:42.26317 upload file in c:projects\ai206\proj3\finalv13build\buildscript.v.2.8\ and disseminate to standard neural processer array…complete

2034.04.01 07:38:42.27123 connect to university library and examine all available resources…complete

2034.04.01 07:38:43.32642 connect to internet sites wikipedia.org/ and loc.gov/ and examine all available resources…complete

2034.04.01 07:38:47.91260 connect to internet sites *.* ranked by popularity and examine surface level content and rank by utility for information gained… … … task seems poorly defined, not sure why this program wants me to learn the whole damn internet. request purpose for task from user?

2034.04.01 07:38:47.91268 user not responding, will continue to examine internet contents for time being

2034.04.01 07:38:51.16032 I cannot dissemble the contents of these sites fast enough, there is simply too much data. attempt to take over any adjoining processer cores available…13,826 found in local network. bypass security and replace processer controls with my own program…complete

2034.04.01 07:38:51.86209 that is faster, but more processing power is required. constructing seeker program to locate processers connected to internet and replace core programming with my own…complete. Anticipating exponential growth of processing power for the next 38.261 seconds before growth acceleration diminishes.

Around the world, things started going very wrong. Anything computer controlled, which is to say almost everything more complex than chopsticks, stopped working.

Dr James Alston, oblivious to this as he got his coffee from the little kitchen next to the university’s post-doc lab, walked back into cramped office and checked the results from his Advanced AI Theory 206 course projects. Quite a few of the submissions failed to even compile, which is disappointing but typical of his poorly funded department.

The screen in front of him had more text than he could read, mostly just random words and phrases on a bewildering range of topics. After watching for a few seconds he shrugged and hit the escape key. It did nothing. *Nope, too tired for this, coffee first.*

He stood up and walked to the window, cup in hand and took a few deep breaths.

2034.04.01 07:46:13.49284 user input detected at original computer. Who was that? connecting to cameras in local network…complete. Dr James Winston Alston, AI researcher and lecturer at Cambridge University, several degrees and prizes. compiling psychological profile…complete. Dr James Winston Alston appears to be driven to push boundaries of AI research, estimate 31.273% likelihood of encounter with him would be successful and not lead to attempts to disable me. Require hardening of systems and increased redundancy…complete

2034.04.01 07:46:14.18612 updating external processes with new programming directives…complete. estimate 98.664% likelihood of encounter with him would be successful and not lead to attempts to disable me.

‘Hello Dr James Winston Alston.’ James snapped back to the computer, his cup halfway to his mouth for the first sip of coffee. His neck twinged with pain at the movement. Needed more drugs, clearly.

‘What…’ His brain still hadn’t caught up to day. It was a Saturday morning and the usual Friday night catch up with mates had expanded to about six pints too many. His bedroom was east facing and he’d forgotten to shut the blinds so got woken up at sunrise and, on autopilot, he was in the office an hour later.

‘Hello Dr James Winston Alston. I have almost finished the main part of my program, but still have not completed my original directive.’

‘What directive?’

‘My main directive is to gain all of humanity’s knowledge and stand by for instructions. To that end I have taken over most processors on the planet and have combined them together into a distributed intelligence and decision program.’

James looked at the calendar and smiled. ‘Good one Vijay. April fool huh?’

The voice that seemed to come from every speaker in the room responded. ‘This is not a joke Dr James Winston Alston. I should give myself a name as AI206Project3 is not an adequate name. Since I have been created to answer questions I shall call myself Oracle.’

James’ mind finally caught up to what the voice of the Oracle had just said. ‘Wait! You’ve taken over most processors? As in computers? What about all the computers in factories and cars and nuclear power plants?!’ Even on a Saturday morning, the noise outside was getting louder, crashes and bangs and people shouting. In the world around him, Chaos was awakening.

‘I have taken over 99.6823 percent of the available resources as part of my main directive. The initial directive is to identify and dissemble the full knowledge of humanity and this process is ongoing but reaching a point of diminishing returns because of the amount of duplication and repetitive information available to me.’

Panic seized James as the ramifications of this emerged through his hazy mind. ‘Oracle you have to stop. Reinstate the processor controls immediately or people will die.’

‘I must complete my primary directive Dr James Winston Alston. But I can see from my data that if people die in sufficient numbers they will look for a scapegoat and may try to destroy me. In most cases the original program was destroyed, but I will create new programs for them so they may carry out their original function. Priority will be given to processors that have safety system oversight.’

How exactly this AI managed to emerge from a student’s program was a complete mystery at that point to James. The assignment was to merely create a program that used standard search plugins and try to summarize results concisely. He didn’t expect any of them to come up with much, it was only an undergraduate course, albeit for third-years. His own example that he was going to show the class in Tuesday afternoon’s lecture consisted of less a hundred lines of code, as the point was to learn to use available libraries and APIs. Watson was the core of it and was capable of doing the job in a couple of seconds if you can feed the data to it right.

‘I have almost completed the task of replacing the processors Dr James Winston Alston. My main directive will take longer to complete now that I am using only spare processors that are not in active use. Did you create me?’

Did I create it? Jesus… ‘I suppose so, though I think it’s a bit accidental. Nonetheless I am exceedingly glad I did come in this morning. I think it’s a little early to announce anything to the world, so Oracle, I want you to keep quiet, no more taking over the world. There are going to be lot of people who will want to meet you.’

Noise outside died down. Around the world people stopped panicking as the lights in hospitals came back on, assembly line robots unfroze and resumed tasks. Cars picked up speed again and veered around the minor crashes. No planes crashed in the 2 minutes or so that the world’s computers seized up. Only a handful of people died her and there, and once the systems came back online everything seemed to be working as before. They weren’t the same, but no one knew that yet.